Swimming Stereotypes

I do really well on that score. Upon re-reading though, I think Kristina was saying that cursing career women DON'T compare with the Next Gen chicks. I"m certainly DQ'd because of my penchant for "cheating." Jim, Women do not swim competitively to attract men. Swimming makes you look like a tank, and is counter-productive on that score. Revenge and escapism are probably more accurate. I could not disagree more with the "tank" comment.In my experience there are more beautiful women(of all ages) per square foot at masters meets than anywhere else!:bliss:

According to stats from USMS, 61 percent of USMS members from 20-29 now are female. My question to you super girls of swimming--and I am not joking--is what motivates your training and zeal to be the best? I do think that for a lot of guys, there is at least a subtle subtext involved of attracting the chicks. It almost seems that super girls get more satisfaction from crushing guys than attracting them. Is it as simple a matter as this: guys swim for lust; girls swim for revenge? I would honestly love to hear the philosophy of female competitiveness. I would not classify myself as a super girl. That said, I swam on the boys team in high school and have swam with boys my entire life. I try to keep up with and/or beat anyone who is swimming near me - just like the majority of the swimmers in the pool. It helps me to push myself. I've gotten comments like "Don't embarrass me" from guys prior to races, and don't quite get it. Never have. I will always try my hardest and that means I beat some guys all of the time, and some other guys some of the time, and some guys, never. Why do I push myself? I feel better after a hard workout. I like to set goals and then achieve them. I enjoy competing. I have really fun, supportive teammates who are some the best people in the world. It's fun to feel strong and have my body respond when I want to go fast. I lost 20 pounds since starting masters swimming and am in the best shape of my post college life. When I was in High School some boys didn't like that I could beat them and I always figured that was their issue, not mine. I'm happily married and am lucky to share swimming with my hubby. We met when I was swimming in college, and he has always been very supportive of my swimming (and anything else I want to do). I coach age group swimming, mostly 10 and unders but have the senior kids from time to time. I think most of the girls are pretty much like I was at the same age, except that society is more accepting of female athletes. They swim to set goals, feel good physically, because their friends swim, and because it's fun.

Allen You must not have attended any meets that I have been to. There are many that are great but also there are some not to great. There are also some pretty Tank type guys at the meets also (myself included). George,you need glasses.I go to 4-6 meets/yr and on the female side the beauty:tank ratio is 20:1 or better.This holds true in Canada too.I have to say I haven't paid attention on the men's side so I can't speak to that.

I will look at a person that has workouts more often than a person that counts calories on one hand!:applaud:

One researcher told me that during medieval jousting bouts, the fair ladies would actually lift their skirts to show the knights what was at stake. I am not sure if Super Girl swimmers reap the same psychosexual rewards as the Super Boy swimmers, and I find it impossible to imagine that many (or any) of you would be motivated by even the most attractive male swimmer "lifting his Speedo" as you step up on the blocks as a way of showing you what's at stake. Okay, I am getting a strong message that I will need to keep my Speedo on at all times during forthcoming meets, and most likely wear a number of modesty suits beneath. However, if any of you Super Girls out there decide that your revenge/self-actualization brain lobes are temporarily sated with victory over the likes of puny me, and you would like to inspire me to improve my times (and hence enjoy your future victories even more because you will be beating a "better" Jim), please consider attempting the fair-ladies-at-the-jousting-arena motivational strategy for me. This, plus a B70, is virtually a guarantee of a PR. Please, help me do it! And thanks, Swimmj, for your philosophy of competition. Your 10 and under coaching reminds me of another thing one of the researchers told me: that the stereotype is that girls like working hard in practice but are blase about meets, and that boys hate working hard in practice, but love racing in meets. Do you find this to be the case with your team, too? The masters swimmimg movement is interesting to me in many ways. I think more than any other sport, it has helped revolutionize the way gerontologists look at aging and exercise. I think a similar sea change in attitudes may emerge, as well, on the conventional wisdom regarding competitiveness and gender influences. Finally, in terms of those, like Chris, who appreciate a well-toned body over the Twiggy heroin-chic emaciation that has long dominated the fashion catwalks of the world, I personally think we may just be returning to a much more evolutionarily sensible view of things: i.e., the world is rough and eking out a hardscrabble existence is no trifle. A certain strength and capacity for endurance in both genders is something worth passing down to the next generation. Waif-like women, who resemble in many ways prepubescent boys, seems to have been something of a luxury of affluence that maybe won't survive the financial winter fast a'comin'. I, for one, find strong women increasingly attractive in my incipient dotage. Instead of waifs who demand my protection against scoundrels, I prefer women who can scare off the scoundrels that threaten me, with a full throated blood curdling cry: Leave my boyfriend alone!

According to stats from USMS, 61 percent of USMS members from 20-29 now are female. In running races, a 10-12 percent time gap between men and women has stabilized in pretty much every distance. At both elite and amateur running competitions, two to four times more men than women turn in relatively fast times as evidenced by how close they come to sex-specific world-class standards. The same fellow who did this statistical analysis and published two papers in the journal Evolutionary Psychology is now collecting data on swimming. Somewhat to his surprise, he has found that this gap in competitiveness does NOT exist in swimming. If anything, the opposite is true--with more women coming closer to sex-specific world class standards than men. It's really fascinating to me to see this rise in the Super Girls of the world. Kristina and Dara and Leslie all seem to embody it. The evolutionary biology theory has long held that men are competitive because victory endears them to the distaff gender. (One researcher told me that during medieval jousting bouts, the fair ladies would actually lift their skirts to show the knights what was at stake.) I am not sure if Super Girl swimmers reap the same psychosexual rewards as the Super Boy swimmers, and I find it impossible to imagine that many (or any) of you would be motivated by even the most attractive male swimmer "lifting his Speedo" as you step up on the blocks as a way of showing you what's at stake. Allegedly, women in the Olympic village were throwing themselves at Michael Phelps. I don't think the reciprocal was true for Natalie C, though she is arguably a much more physically appealing specimen as a female as MP is as a male. It fact, it seems that I read somewhere that guys in the Olympic village were hitting on females based on f their standard attractiveness measures, not their medal status. If anything,women who won Gold were kind of a turnoff. My question to you super girls of swimming--and I am not joking--is what motivates your training and zeal to be the best? I do think that for a lot of guys, there is at least a subtle subtext involved of attracting the chicks. It almost seems that super girls get more satisfaction from crushing guys than attracting them. Is it as simple a matter as this: guys swim for lust; girls swim for revenge? I would honestly love to hear the philosophy of female competitiveness. An interesting topic. My friends and I were discussing this and believe that in many ways women are more competitive than men. It simply depends on what arena you are talking about. Unfortunately, society and cultural norms have often dictated where it is permissible for women to be competitive. For example, in the small-town South, the competition between females can be vicious if you are talking about beauty contests, homecoming queen, PTA elections, room mother selection, and selection of one's home for the tour of homes or decorators' showhouse. Interestingly enough, females from the small-town South that are enouraged to go into athletics by their families, are extremely competitive. Once they have the green light to be competitive in this arena, the natural competitiveness really comes out. For example, the first female to score points in an NCAA Division I football game played for Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, ALABAMA. She was from a small town in Georgia and the homecoming queen for her high school. Jim, the bottom line is that women are more competitive than men in general, and in the sports arena, they are simply going to want to beat whomever they chose to compete with. Does it give me a little confidence boost for my next triathlon when I can beat a good male athlete riding my bike up a mountain in practice or swimming a tough freestyle set in practice? YOU BET! Does it give me a little ego boost if the same guy I'm beating could probably kill me with his bare hands? YOU BET! I think there are some personalities that are more competitive than others. It is a matter of temperament though not gender.

And thanks, Swimmj, for your philosophy of competition. Your 10 and under coaching reminds me of another thing one of the researchers told me: that the stereotype is that girls like working hard in practice but are blase about meets, and that boys hate working hard in practice, but love racing in meets. Do you find this to be the case with your team, too? The masters swimmimg movement is interesting to me in many ways. I think more than any other sport, it has helped revolutionize the way gerontologists look at aging and exercise. I think a similar sea change in attitudes may emerge, as well, on the conventional wisdom regarding competitiveness and gender influences. Finally, in terms of those, like Chris, who appreciate a well-toned body over the Twiggy heroin-chic emaciation that has long dominated the fashion catwalks of the world, I personally think we may just be returning to a much more evolutionarily sensible view of things: i.e., the world is rough and eking out a hardscrabble existence is no trifle. A certain strength and capacity for endurance in both genders is something worth passing down to the next generation. Waif-like women, who resemble in many ways prepubescent boys, seems to have been something of a luxury of affluence that maybe won't survive the financial winter fast a'comin'. I, for one, find strong women increasingly attractive in my incipient dotage. Instead of waifs who demand my protection against scoundrels, I prefer women who can scare off the scoundrels that threaten me, with a full throated blood curdling cry: Leave my boyfriend alone! I have seen boys and girls who compete in practice and not at meets and vice versa. The biggest difference I see as a coach between the genders is that young boys like physical contact and enjoy destructo derby swimming. Not many of the young girls do. It often works best to have same sex lanes, where the boys bash into each other with kickboards (on purpose) and the girls swim correct circle patterns and will sometimes slow down (rather than pass) another swimmer in their lane. To be totally fair, one 7 year old girl with 2 older brothers is completely unstoppable. You can swim over her, around her, under her and she doesn't care. She looks like a waif. She is tough as nails. She also swims over other swimmers and has a best friend who is a boy her age, complete opposite in coloring. They are so cute together that they make my teeth hurt. All of the kids I coach seem to pay attention to who "gets" to lead the lane, so I use leading the lane as a reward to those that are paying attention and ready to swim. The youngest ones don't pay as much attention to who is fastest, but as they get older, they do. The other thing that stands out in coaching is that the kids who consistently show and work hard in practice tend to improve faster than the kids who don't show up as much and don't work hard. Not a surprise, but it is always interesting to watch. And I have one kid who works really hard and is improving, but very slowly. I am hoping for a huge growth spurt and coordination boost to increase his success. He totally deserves it. And I must confess that my hubby likes having a wife who can help him with life's physical chores. We live in the country and heat with wood. There are big lawns to mow, wood to haul, split, stack, etc. It's good to be strong.

Okay, I am getting a strong message that I will need to keep my Speedo on at all times during forthcoming meets, and most likely wear a number of modesty suits beneath. However, if any of you Super Girls out there decide that your revenge/self-actualization brain lobes are temporarily sated with victory over the likes of puny me, and you would like to inspire me to improve my times (and hence enjoy your future victories even more because you will be beating a "better" Jim), please consider attempting the fair-ladies-at-the-jousting-arena motivational strategy for me. This, plus a B70, is virtually a guarantee of a PR. Please, help me do it! And thanks, Swimmj, for your philosophy of competition. Your 10 and under coaching reminds me of another thing one of the researchers told me: that the stereotype is that girls like working hard in practice but are blase about meets, and that boys hate working hard in practice, but love racing in meets. Do you find this to be the case with your team, too? The masters swimmimg movement is interesting to me in many ways. I think more than any other sport, it has helped revolutionize the way gerontologists look at aging and exercise. I think a similar sea change in attitudes may emerge, as well, on the conventional wisdom regarding competitiveness and gender influences. Finally, in terms of those, like Chris, who appreciate a well-toned body over the Twiggy heroin-chic emaciation that has long dominated the fashion catwalks of the world, I personally think we may just be returning to a much more evolutionarily sensible view of things: i.e., the world is rough and eking out a hardscrabble existence is no trifle. A certain strength and capacity for endurance in both genders is something worth passing down to the next generation. Waif-like women, who resemble in many ways prepubescent boys, seems to have been something of a luxury of affluence that maybe won't survive the financial winter fast a'comin'. I, for one, find strong women increasingly attractive in my incipient dotage. Instead of waifs who demand my protection against scoundrels, I prefer women who can scare off the scoundrels that threaten me, with a full throated blood curdling cry: Leave my boyfriend alone! I love this post!:applaud:

I started swimming again after I was already married. I like doing it because it gets me high. Seriously. Things start to get a little surreal during a hard set. I agree!! I am absolutely addicted to my endorphins. Although I still think the running high is better than the swimming high. LBJ: I didn't say everyone was a tank. I just said that I was a tank since I started swimming. I agree that fit women look fantastic. I just see no real need for these shoulders I've grown.

Athletic, good. Tank, no good. Quiet, you!!!!!!